


The Uses of Sorrow

by lucius_complex



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A light has gone out in this mortal world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Uses of Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I spent whole hours crying after I found out about Nelson Mandela’s death. So I wrote this to share how I felt, (and maybe a teensy bit because misery loves company.) We have lost something of immeasurable value. A light has gone out in this world today, and we all feel it, so very very terribly. But perhaps we have not lost it entirely, for now it leads us from the very skies.

 

 

__

 

 

  _“When he shall die,_  
 _Take him and cut him out in little stars,_  
 _And he will make the face of heaven so fine_  
 _That all the world will be in love with night_  
 _And pay no worship to the garish sun.”_  
― William Shakespeare

 

 

1

It was a wonderful burial despite the rain, Loki thought.

Wonderful in that Stark would have hated the whole thing with a passion, had he been able to attend. Might have risen from the dead if he could, just to protest the endless grey banners and company of sombre military uniforms and insist that this was _not_ the way Ironman would have wanted to be sent off.

Might even be responsible for the thin but steady stream of cloud piss that had been drizzling steadily overhead since dawn, if primitive mortal theories of eternal life were to believed and Tony is now dressed in white and toting a harp, shaking his fist at the droning priest who was currently waxing Tony’s life to heroic portions, calling him a _devout_ Christian, lovingly returned to God’s bosom, et cetera.

The unceasing rumbles of thunder, Loki definitely knew Stark wasn’t responsible for. But the rain-

Yes. Maybe that. He had always loved messing about with Loki’s hair, after all.

*

2

‘You should join the line.’

By rights, nobody should have seen Loki, invisible and leaning under a tree in the rain. At least, that was what he’d hoped for.

But then, Tony had hoped for strippers. Instead, he’d gotten ‘Taps’ by a brass quartet.

Loki inclined his head but didn’t reply the Widow’s greeting. He hadn’t heard her coming up and knew she couldn’t see him under the disillusionment spell weaved over his person.

That she found him at all wasn’t all that surprising; she’d been the first to find out about them after all, all those years ago.

They stood for some moments together under the scant shelter of the trees, watching the funeral procession. To one side stood Thor, eschewing polished armour for the relative discreetness of a charcoal suit and tie, holding tightly on to his midgardian lady with both hands. Their heads were bent together, unheeding of the camera flashes going off around them.

Loki looked away from the tiresome spectacle of his brother’s romance and took in the encroaching media, idly wondering if he should shot-circuit their equipment. The funeral area itself was fenced in by the NYPD, but every other square feet beyond this has been completely swallowed up by television crew, their spindly recording sticks rising high above their vehicles.

‘Your brother worries a great deal about you,’ the Widow said to him out of the blue, ‘moreso than ever.’

Loki shrugged. ‘It has ever given him purpose to do so.’

‘It might give you purpose now to return it.’

The god merely exhaled. ‘What do you _want,_ Widow?’ It was not Loki’s usual flair to speak so plainly, but then, the day had been unusual. 

The last sixteen _years_ had been unusual.  

‘Call me Natasha, please. I haven’t been Widow in eons.’

Loki snorted. Although it’s been years since she inherited Nick Fury’s position as the head of SHILED, the god had always continued to think of her as the Widow, as had Tony. ‘I fear I’m a little distracted today, so the riddles will have to wait.’

‘Hmm,' the Widow comiserated, and again they lapsed until neutral silence until she spoke again. 'If an ex-soviet spy can lead a group that currently defends the rights of the free world, imagine what immortal powers can wrought.’

‘You already have one, and more powerful than me,’ Loki pointed out almost wearily. ‘You are hardly in need of another.’

‘Our loss in Tony isn’t just a loss in power. It’s a loss of imagination; of flair and-’ Widow paused, eyes leaping and searching over the uniform shades of black. _‘-elasticity.’_

Despite himself, Loki found his mouth quirking. ‘You think me so undone? So very _pliable_ to your overtures of recruitment, in my grief?’

‘I think you so devoted to his _causes_ , in your remembrance,’ was all Natasha said blandly, before pushing away to join the line. He watched her move to the head of the procession, older now but no less beautiful, her hair dyed a dark brunette and pulled into a net under her mourning veil.

The rain trickled steadily upon them all, turning Loki’s hair into a sleek, dripping curtain as he watched the line snaking before the coffin. Under a cluster of umbrellas the President of the United States sniffled discretely into a handkerchief; Loki suspected that whoever suggested the entire ceremony be conducted out-of-doors was going to find themselves out of a job.

The line of empty ironman suits of stood at attention at one side of the coffin, pined with military decorations that Tony had refused to accept in life. Now they garnished his hollowed out suits in a distasteful tableau of officiousness that Loki knew his lover would have hated. He considered turning them into snakes, going as far as to lift his hand before dropping it back to his side.  _No._ It would be just another pointless display in an endless parade of pointless displays.

Only when he lifted his head to watch Captain America and the retired Ltd Rodney glaring at the suits as they passed, did Loki release his breath and swallowed his bitterness.

The people who mattered knew. That would be enough.

Tony-

Tony would have wanted another sort of spectacle altogether. Karaoke and booze. Cheerleaders and fireworks. Loki didn’t give a rat’s arse about what his lover wanted. The funeral wasn’t for him after all, and black suited Loki just fine.

He appeared only at the last minute, the last in line after the rest of the Avengers, led by the Widow. The newer members of the initiative formed the line at the front; followed by the remaining team members who still served after sixteen years of service; namely Steve and Thor. Bruce Banner, now a civilian in black indian sherwani, brought up the line with Jane Foster.

The cameras started flashing with renewed vigour, as Loki knew they would once he ended his spell of disillusionment and appear to them in public, hair slicked black and hands jammed tightly into black trenchcoat pockets. Much would be made by the media, he had no doubt, of the solitary lock of silver hair that now graced his forehead, incongruous against its inky palate.

Much would be made of Loki’s grief; of their years of peace, of the relationship that had seemingly ‘turned him good’ or some such trivial rot for the duration of his and Tony’s brief time together.

‘My condolences,’ Bruce mouthed discretely to the air beside Loki after they’d all done the obligatory circling around like tin soldiers and Loki had watched them lower the coffin into the earth. Thor stared at him from a distance, grief and longing warring in his face, but thankfully equiped with enough good sense (or advanced warning) not to approach. Loki’s eyes flickered to his brother and away before the familiar anger, now touched with new bitterness, could cloud his mind and raze his thoughts with fire.

Always did Thor seek to understand Loki's heart - but always had the hands of Fate made such commiseration impossible. As long as Thor had Jane, had family, had a crown on his head and a place in the sun, his brother would _not_ understand. 

He watched as Captain America caught Thor by the shoulders and pulled him along with the rest of the Avengers who were moving away, towards their vehicles and the waiting media.   

Pepper was the only other person he acknowledged or allowed near him. Loki had been surprised that she’d found the courage to walk up to him, even more so when she’d flung her arms around him and pulled his lankier frame into a hug.

‘Christ, you’re tall. Now I know how Tony must have felt.’ Her eyes were wet when she finally pulled away. ‘He must have hated having to look up so much.’

‘He did,’ the god admitted with a smile, the first in a long while. ‘The heels in his shoes weren’t particularly comfortable.’

‘That popinjay,’ Pepper snorted and wiped her eyes. ‘You probably won’t come for the tribute dinner tonight, will you?’

‘Probably not,’ Loki echoed, attempting and probably failing to hide his grimace.

‘It’s just as well. We’ll be officially announcing the inauguration of the Stark Peace Prize tonight.’ Pepper said with a shaky laugh. ‘Somebody will have to hate it on his behalf.’

‘I’ll try my best,’ the god said with a small nod, and watched her smile at him in gratitude and walk away.

Loki _did_ show up at the ceremony that night, but he didn’t go in. Instead he sat on the roof of the Metropolitan and listened to the strains of the city melting into the celebratory noises of Tony’s tribute night - toying with the arc reactor in his hands as the memories came, hard and fast and merciless.

Much like this morning's rain.

*

 

3

Tony had given the arch reactor to Loki twice. The first time, the light within it had been blue and pure, and Loki’s mouth had dropped opened and Tony’s eyes had been pinpricks of pure chocolate brilliance; for once his lover’s cocky tongue had failed him, his jokes had fallen flat and he’d trembled when he spoke.

And he'd offered up mortal his life to Loki, in exchange for the god's willingness to reconsider the nature of their...  _association._

They talked a great deal of rubbish, in the heady years of Tony’s youth, and it had all started innocuously enough. Talking whilst fighting had made way to talking over coffee. Then arguing over coffee-fuelled, napkin scribblings had lead to building things; and building things had lead to running away fast whenever things blew up, and eventually to Loki being so successfully distracted by his human lover that he hardly noticed when the media stopped calling him an alien terrorist and started calling him Tony’s reformed celestial suitor, or some such idiotic, sentimental drivel.

When they were together, they had spent their time talking about quantum dynamics and time travel; the likelihood of manipulating a wormhole through time via quantum entanglement. How much of a portion of universe one could hypothetically suck up, if one was to built, in Tony’s words; ‘a giant sucking Hover equivalent’, powered by energy sources that Loki would steal from Odin’s vaults.

They never talked about death. Loki had brought up the word ‘immortality’ once and only once, and the look on his lover’s face – sick with longing, yet desperate and terrified - had convinced him never to speak of it again. And so he’d sealed his own desires in a chamber deep within his heart, sealed it shut with a terrible iron will and an oath that it would never again see the light of day.

They never talked about love either. That Tony would occasionally thank him through the years for the gift of his silence was enough. There would be a certain look that would suddenly pass through his lover's eyes like dark waters; a press of his lips against Loki’s jaw that mouthed mute and imperceptible things into his skin.

Or they _would_ be imperceptible, if one was not a god.

Loki never acknowledged them. That he heard was enough.

Instead, he made ready for the day that he knew would come too soon for them both.

*

4

The _second_ time the human gave Loki his heart, the light was fading fast from his eyes as he’d made Loki hold it, wrapping his own frail fingers around the god’s marble-smooth ones. Loki had cursed him and threatened to betray him, but still Tony had prevailed, determined to make his final act also his most defiant, most _stupidly_ trustful one.

Ever had Tony enjoyed such sentimental, grandoisly symbolic gestures- and thus with his dying breath, the fool had bequeathed to Loki the schematics to his arc reactor. 

And with it, the means to destroy the very world he’s spent his life protecting.

 _I promise you nothing,_ Loki had whispered, voice thick and unravelling with grief. He remembered being cold, and cruel. He remembered being frozen in place by the stabbing ice in his veins. But Stark’s eyes had held only warmth – warmth and forbearance, and the subtle, ironic patience one acquires upon having run out of time.

 _Good,_ his lover had said. _Then I know you’re not lying._

And after his eyes had closed Loki had just stood there, clutching Tony’ heart in his hands and saying nothing, as the frost seeped out from beneath him and coated the walls and floor. As a single tear fell, flecked in ice; and a single lock of hair turned white at the precise moment the light in the arc reactor turned dark.

And now Tony’s funeral was long hours over, and the arc reactor lay silent on the palm of his hand - no more than a piece of metal, cold and lacking all vitality. An empty husk absent of the blue starlight that Loki had once spent long nights tracing his fingers on and looking upon.

Loki sat on the roof of the Met, and pondered.

What should Midgard be to a god of mischief, now that Tony was dead? Asgard had ceased to be his home for long years, and now with Tony gone, what should he make of this mortal realm, still weak, still in so many ways _unworthy?_

Should it be a place to destroy in a fit of pain and fury? An exiled land in which to wander, desolate in his grief and abandonment?

Or would it be a place to leave behind, yet another temporary layover in a long line of layovers? Should it to be no more than a notch in his expeditions, pleasant but barely discernable in the ever winding road of an immortal soul? 

The god gazed for long moments at the star in his hands. He could feel the sounds of the memorial ceremony levels below him, music and movement; grief being weaved into resolve and eventually into triumph one day, under Pepper's solid and unflinching sense of purpose and loyalty. Nostalgically, he observed the mark of Tony’s hand on so much around him, from the new energy standards to a vast range of everyday, ubiquitous devices that people now took for granted, hardly knowing that some of them had been invented by the carefully mechanised re-engineering of magical concepts; concepts that had come from alien lands

He'd once read somewhere that death ends a life, but not a relationship. This is what Loki pondered, as he looked out upon the alien world he had inadvertently stayed on for longer,  _so much longer,_  than he’d ever anticipated.

So what would be result of this relationship, now that death has come to pass? What would Midgard be to Loki, when his only ties to it had been a single mortal lifespan, now snuffed out?

 

*

5

As he magicked the doors to fly open and sailed into SHIEDs meeting quarters, Loki could clearly hear Tony’s voice in his head, dryly pointing out the utter narcissism of such an entrance. Definitely a nine and three quarters on the Stark Scale _at least_ , and his own lips almost quirked in response.

But it would not do for the other Avengers to see, so Loki tucked this secret smile away into a private corner of his mind as he swept into the room, cold and neutral and _not_ human. 

He walked past the Widow’s speculative expression, past Captain America’s quickening eyes and his own brother’s exasperatingly teary ones. Took in the wondering expressions around him as he sat slowly but without hesitation in Tony’s vacant seat.

Placed Tony’s schematics with the arch reactor on to the table before him, and deliberately looked up to meet Jane Foster’s stunned eyes.

‘I’m sorry to arrive so late,’ the god of mischief finally said into the loaded silence, before giving the Widow a brief nod. ‘Would you mind starting again, from the beginning?’

 

[fini]

 

 

  _~and it took me years to understand that this too, was a gift._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> RIP, Nelson Mandala - warrior, healer, hero.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


End file.
